1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to surgical devices for holding tissue to be cut and, more particularly, to a device for providing compression to a portion of body tissue and for providing guidance for a cutting blade to cut the body tissue.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Anastomotic procedures are well known in the surgical arts. As used herein, anastomosis is any surgical procedure which unites parts or branches of vessels, organs, or other tissue structures, such as nerves and tendons, such that the vessels, organs or tissue structures communicate by collateral channels. Typically, tissue is cut on either side of a pathologic segment to facilitate removal of the segment. Successful reconnection of the remaining tissue portions depends upon the shape and condition of the severed ends remaining in the patient. To optimize tissue for most types of reconnections, the severed tissue ends remaining in the patient should be cleanly and consistently transected. The inner layers of the tissue should not bulge or protrude toward the anastomotic line relative to the outer layers, i.e., the layers of the severed tissue ends must be flush.
Prior art surgical cutting devices fail to provide severed tissue ends of the quality needed for subsequent anastomosis. Conventional instruments such as scalpels, razors, scissors, and the like, transect tissue without differential compression along the tissue section length during cutting. Without such differential compression, the severed tissue ends tend to display bulging of their inner contents, forming unsatisfactory hemispherical end profiles.
Current instruments for preparing tissue structures for subsequent anastomosis fail to cut the structures under the necessary differential compression for optimal tissue end profiles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,872,455 to Pinchuk et al. describes a device for trimming a tubular structure to mate with a similarly trimmed end of a second tubular structure. The device comprises a pair of pivotally-connected arms, one of which carries a cutting element and the other of which carries a V-shaped notch. A tubular structure sits in the notch as the arms are approximated, cutting the tubular structure. No element of the Pinchuk device compresses the tubular tissue prior to or during the cutting stroke, thus no differential compression is provided.
A need in the art therefore exists for a surgical device which applies differential compression along the length of a tissue structure while providing guidance for a cutting blade to transect the structure. Such a device would permit the user to safely and easily prepare vessels, organs, and other tissue structures for subsequent anastomosis by providing severed tissue end profiles having flush inner and outer layers.